Summer Reading Book Review: New Beginnings
New Beginnings (Book 1 of 15)
Christine Meunier
www.christinemeunierauthor.com
112 pages
Recommended reading age 9 to 12
Jacqui King, her parents Tony and Kate, and her older brother Ross are moving to a large property in Victoria, Australia after her dad was offered a new position. Jacqui and her mom are excited about the move, while her brother Ross is not. He doesn’t want to leave his friends in the middle of a school year, let alone move over 10 hours away.
The new property is just what Jacqui dreams of, a spot to hopefully have her own horse. With her parents on board to work on fixing up the property for boarding, along with gardening, etc, Jacqui feels her dreams are going to come true.
She soon means Geordie and Hannah, and some other horse-crazy friends when school starts back up after the break. Plus she meets Kara who works with her on the weekend to learn how to ride. Jacqui’s dreams are closer to reality! The girls work together to help get the farm in shape and soon they get the Kings get their first boarders. What is going to happen next?
I enjoyed this book. Although now I have to read the next one to find out what happens. Big thumbs up from here in the states. One of the things I liked about this book is learning new terms and making the correlation between US terms for things versus Australian terms. For example, I had to look up the word agistment. I had never heard of it before. Basically, it’s the equivalent of our term for boarding a horse or leasing out land for other agricultural activities. Another term that I hadn’t heard of was a rug for a horse. I understood in the context of the story. In the US we call it a blanket or a sheet. The last tidbit is it’s is interesting to think about seasons and summer. For instance, we are just starting summer in the US, and in Australia, they are just starting winter. In the book, it’s summer and Christmas – such a strange concept for this California girl!
All in all, I now have yet another series to work my way through!
The books I review are purchased by myself or downloaded via Kindle Unlimited. This review refers to the eBook version.
